Name Mary Anderson Died October 24, 2007 | Role Mayor | |
Mary "Polly" (Pavlovich) Anderson (June 8, 1915 – October 24, 2007) was an American political figure on the Iron Range. Described as “feisty” and someone who “personified the spirit of the Iron Range,” she worked tirelessly to improve the lives of her neighbors as an active DFLer and the mayor of Kinney, Minnesota.
Life
She was born in Chisholm, Minnesota on June 8, 1915, to tavern owners Bude and Mildred (Vukadinovich) Pavlovich. Anderson graduated from Buhl High School and the nursing program of what has become Virginia Regional Medical Center. After traveling to Alaska and California as a young person, she settled back in Kinney to work at her father's tavern in 1944, which she renamed "Mary's Bar" when he died in 1958. Over the years, Mary’s Bar played host to numerous campaigns and fund raisers for Minnesota Democrats, including such luminaries as Jim Oberstar, Hubert Humphrey, Paul Wellstone and Rudy Perpich.
She is most well known for her tenure as mayor of Kinney, Minnesota from 1973 to 2002, and her (unofficial) proposal to have Kinney secede from the United States as the Republic of Kinney to protest a lack of government services, which she sent as a town resolution to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. The proposal yielded a great deal of publicity for the small town of 250 residents, and ultimately earned the town a new water system.
She died on October 24, 2007, in Chisholm, Minnesota.